Travelling In New England With LBJ Grasping Hands and Dozens of Roses

Lyndon Baines Johnson stared out triumphantly over the largest crowd ever assembled in Portland, Maine, as it roared its welcome. After a few minutes listening to the pandemonium, he looked down quizzically and shouted, "Now do you want me to listen to you or do you want to listen to me?" The answer was prompt and obvious, and the enraptured audience swallowed his every word.

This was the reaction at all six stops in New England last week, as the President received a hero's welcome in a section of the country reported in the polls to be favoring him over Sen. Barry Goldwater by about 60 to 40.

On the campaign trail, President Johnson is all things to all people. Whether discussing education in the humanities at Brown University, the need for a reasonable international stance in Manchester, New Hampshire, or the contributions of Vermont's Republican Senators to a bi-partisan foreign policy, he seemed to touch on the point of most concern to each group. With his web of homespun philosophy, face-to-face political common sense talk, and emotion-charged pleading, he is the embodiment of the great American ethic of the boy-who-grows-up-to-be-President. By the end of the day in New England, there was little evidence that the region had ever been a Republican stronghold.

At each stop in the tour, the President used basically the same technique: a prepared speech putting forward one of his major campaign themes (responsibility in government, the capture of the Republican Party by extremists); a lavish dose of praise for the particular state he was visiting; and a standard ending about "the faces I saw on my way into town from the airport this afternoon" and "the problems I must consider when I return to my big desk in that lonely room in the White House tonight."

Typical of his good will for the New England states were these hosannahs:

* "In all this lovable, prosperous, progressive land of the United States, the State of Connecticut is the most prosperous State."

* "Nature has blessed Maine with a beauty unmatched in all the world. But the Lord's greatest gift to Maine is the quality of its people."

* "Vermont was the first State admitted to the Union after the original thirteen . . . Vermont drafted the first State consitution to forbid slavery."

The President remained happy throughout his tour, as he discovered the spectacular crowds mobilized by each group of local leaders. He showed his appreciation for their work by devoting more than a fair share of attention to the local workers at every stop. The welcomes were carefully planned and well-executed by his advance men; for example, instead of landing at the major Hartford airport, the mammoth United Aircraft plant in East Hartford, where he would have an automatic greeting from its several thousand employees.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON enjoys nothing more than making a speech and mingling with the crowds on a campaign trip. Before it is time for him to speak--while the audience sings the Star Spangled Banner, or local dignitaries deliver their greetings--the President is silent and deep in thought, often chewing gum as he awaits his turn to speak. He begins slowly and softly, with a serene look on his face. As he goes farther into the speech, his drawl becomes more obvious and his words more forceful; he induces a given response from the crowd with his own facial expressions--sometimes an angry scowl--and his multiple hand gestures. As the day wears on and he becomes increasingly tired, he pushes himself harder, and this is often noticeable in his more sluggish rate of speach.

At all times and at all costs the President directs as much attention as possible to his wife. Lady Bird's compliments to the host city--as obviously overzealous as the President's--always delight the audience. As she walks along a fence shaking hands, she is often complimented upon her appearance by the delighted spectators. The President seems to use Lady Bird's speaking ability to give him an opportunity to rest before a major address. Once he has introduced her, the crowd pleads that she say a few words, and this gives him time to hastily review the talk he will give. Unlike her husband she never seems to show the strain of the day's hard campaigning.

President Johnson is particularly successful when he borrows Sen. Humphrey's technique of putting questions to the audience, to which they will respond with an obvious answer. Once he has built the crowd up to a feverish pitch, he will let loose with a battery of these challenges--including obvious questions about the people's support of a number of measures that Sen. Goldwater has opposed.

Despite the huge time lag which may develop--he was three hours late by the end of his New England tour--the President insists upon stopping wherever there is a substantial number of people to shake hands. He reaches one hand over the other in order to shake the largest number possible. By the end of his New England trip, both the President's hands were bleeding--and they had been treated several times during the day. The unbounded enthusiasm of the crowd means that they will even claw the President's hand, if only they can get close enough to do it.

The President's concern over his lateness--for which he continually apologized--was more than compensated for by the response he received everywhere. As Presidential Press Secretary George Reedy commented in Hartford, "It's worth it to be late for crowds like this. I've never seen anything like it."

At several stops on the New England tour, the Presidential party was astonished by a recurrence of the "jumpers" of President Kennedy's 1960 campaign. The squeals of delight from teenage girls often sounded as if it were The Beatles and not the President who had arrived in town. The mobs greeting the Presidential plane were so enthusiastic that they were often satisfied merely to shake the hand of the driver of the press bus--as long as it was someone "with" the President.

There is never any doubt during the President's campaign tour that he is running the show with an iron hand. When it semed that they would give him favorable coverage, the President invited the still photographers to come into his car in Hartford--but when he wanted the crowd to have clearer view of him, he bluntly ordered them out. And complying with his request, the photographers ruined the hood of the car behind his as they stepped onto it.

The arrival of the President of the United States in any city is an extrordinary ceremony. The airport closes to all other planes about a half hour before he lands, or, if it is large enough, sets aside a huge area for the three planes which bring the Presidential party. At "very stop high school bands play "Hail to the Chief," "Hello, Lyndon," and "The Yellow Rose of Texas." By the end of the day, Lady Bird had been given about 100 yellow roses.

On the two planes which precede the President is the huge entourage of White House staff and press. As soon as they land and take their positions, a contingent of local press and the Secret Service agents who have advanced him add their numbers to the massive receiving line.

A travelling White House staff member handles every minor detail. One man, for example, is responsible for taking care of the Presidential seal, and he places it on the rostrum before the President arrives. Another manually operates the teleprompter President Johnson uses to read his prepared texts. (Whenever the President leaves the text in the middle and skips a sizeable portion before he returns to it, the teleprompter operator must frantically catch up with him.)

It is immediately apparent that the White House staff with President Johnson is distinctively fashioned in his image--mostly Southern, friendly, and "folksy" in the same way the President is. Almost none remain from the Kennedy days.

MEMBERS OF THE PRESS CORPS who accompany the President wherever he goes live in a world all their own. They know each other well and speak their own peculiar abbreviations and jargon. As soon as the press plane takes off liquor flows freely from the substantial supply aboard at all times. When the plane touches down at each stop, the members of the press applaud gently in what has become almost a folk custom.

The life of the press corps which accompanies the President is hectic and tense. They must scramble to get off the plane and on the press buses on time; they must battle the crowd before it blocks the press section of the speaker's platform; they must scramble again to the buses and then out of the buses back onto the plane. The only time available to the press to write their stories is during flight, and there is a din of clattering typewriters on the plane at all times. Then there is a furious competition to reach the press telephones, and stories must be wired or called in rapidly so that a substantial part of the President's spech is not missed.

In Hartford last week the press had a particularly serious problem when the buses were separated from the rest of the Presidential motorcade. One reporter was trapped in the surging crowd, and he had to be rescued by a Secret Service man.

President Johnson openly courts the press on these trips, and he takes a small "pool" of newsmen onto his plane between stops. He always takes time out at the airport to say hello to the reporters before he begins his speech. In Portland last week, he opened his address with a testimonial to May Craig, the formidable antagonist at Presidential press conferences whose columns appear in Portland.

Most of the reporters who travel with the President treat him like an old friend with whose whims and eccentricities they are intimately familiar. They often imitate his style on the plane and can even be seen mouthing the words coming from the President. In any case, the press is always cognizant of the Johnson technique of handling people. As one 20-year veteran of White House coverage commented last week, "When he needs us he's nice, but when he doesn't, he can be the least cooperative man in Washington."